faderift | open | your baddest behavior

open | your baddest behavior

WHO: Alexandrie, Bastien, Byerly, and their captive audience
WHAT: Mandatory etiquette and dance lessons
WHEN: Justinian 15, 9:45
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: See the OOC post and IC announcement for more information! If you didn't sign up, you can still participate in Parts A and D, and just handwave the other two, without needing to sign up or get an assignment. If you want to do B and C, you can find your own dance partner/seating group OOC, or you can sign up now and we'll dole out new assignments if we get enough latecomers to do so. If you signed up and are missing from the lists when you shouldn't be, I'm sorry and please tell me!

disclaimer: event less fancy than pictured

Seating Assignments
— Table One: Gwenaëlle, Iorveth, Matthias, Athessa
— Table Two: Flint, Ilias, Darras, Med Seller, Yngvi
— Table Three: Julius, Thranduil, Anders, Brienne
— Table Four: Benedict, Colin, Valentine, Six, Derrica
— Table Five: Teren, Salvio, Bartimaeus, Osana
— Table Six: Freddie, Petrana, Kain, Merrill, Silver
— Table Seven: Yseult, Cosima, Steve, Inessa
— Table Eight: Sidony, Fifi, Nell, Fingon
— Table Nine: Thor, Nathaniel H., Solas, Skadi

Dance Partners
— Cosima & Nathaniel H.
— Athessa & Anders
— Teren & Flint
— Freddie & Bartimaeus
— Yseult & Darras
— Nell & Julius
— Merrill & Colin
— Skadi & Benedict
— Gwenaëlle & Solas
— Petrana & Salvio
— Osana & the Medicine Seller
— Sidony & Matthias
— Six & Thranduil
— Brienne & Valentine
— Fifi & Steve
— Thor & Fingon
— Ilias & Iorveth

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( he lets gwenaëlle down with some reluctance, caught up in the dance, but the smoky smell of burnt elfroot had announced iorveth before he’d rubbed himself on thranduil’s side, and if this is the path his bad behavior is going to take— well, it’s not actually bad behavior, not by even a mild measure of it. the good wine (thank you, romain) is starting to go to everyone’s heads alongside the stress of the evening, so if he and gwenaëlle slip out a side door, they’ll hardly be missed. )

Those were tailored to be loose, Iorveth, why did you tie yourself up? ( he chides, but at least they’re finally displayed to their best as iorveth disarms. he always looks smaller when he’s not covered with as many sharp points as a hedgehog, more endearing.

(thranduil may have poor taste in lovers.)

he catches on soon after iorveth chooses a sword. oh. so this too is shared between worlds.

well, he never did court gwenaëlle as fully as he intended. he dips to kiss her forehead, and then takes his hand from her waist. )

Take a few steps back, Gwenaëlle.

( and he steps forward into range, one hand raised to catch if iorveth would care to toss. he thinks he has the beat. )

Because I don't attend fancy parties without being certain I can carve my way out of them.

[ that is his answer for why his pretty clothes are all confined underneath layers and layers of weaponry. lovely as thranduil and gwenaelle are dressed for the occasion, perhaps this is just something the three of them will never see eye to eye on.

what they see as dignity and beauty, iorveth sees as being trussed up like a holiday turkey, paraded around like as if those around him think they've tamed the savage elf monster and made him civilized. like surrender. as if polishing him up is a victory than then makes him less dangerous, more approachable. iorveth was born to gutters and dirt and blood, and he intends to carry that with him, everywhere and always.

and yet, clothes are just clothes, and once he's more involved with spinning swords in artful, slicing patterns around his head and torso, he could be wearing bedsheets for all he cares. the door to the dance hall was left open so the festive mix of lutes, panpipes, fiddles and drums pour out into the streets, and if he closed his eyes, Iorveth could dream he's back in the Flotsam forest, some of his oldest comrades nearby, drinking and cheering and laughing as they play old games they used to pass the time with in the war camps, traditional sword dances and old, nonsense songs in the Elder tongue. the fact he knows it's thranduil and gwen here with him makes it all the better.

once gwen's stepped back and is well out of range of a potentially fumbled blade (not that he expects Thranduil to do something as base as fumble), he jerks his chin towards him, signalling the throw before it's done. the elegant blade thranduil gifted him twirls over his hand, around his back, then sails, end over end, through the air, in an arch towards his once-lover.

catch, booboo. ]

( the thing is, gwenaëlle wouldn't disagree with iorveth's assessment. the sort of events that this is meant to be teaching them to navigate aren't about anything beautiful or dignified, and the purpose of this evening is to teach riftwatch to tolerate and be tolerated, not to thrive. they are a different sort of battle-ground, for which one wears a different sort of armor. she doesn't wear a gown to court to feel beautiful; there is a reason that the dress she'd worn to the winter palace, the night of celene's narrow victory, had ringed her in lit candles.

(it sits on a dress-form in her grandfather's hightown home, now, against the possibility she may need to wrap herself in violent threat a second time.)

when she'd sewn the clothes iorveth is wearing now, she hadn't meant them to be for anyone to see but her. what is lovely in private is more complicated on parade; she likes it no more than he does and would have tolerated it no better, sober. alexandrie had thoughtfully kept her in strong drink all through the wedding that he'd watched from a distance—she is no stranger to needing something to get through. all the more now that she chafes at being pushed back into a position she's stepped out of and away from. it feels less urgent to make herself palatable, so she resents it all the more—

but she is full of wine, and smoke, and there are handsome men throwing swords at each other, so they're all spared her sharpest edges as she sprawls in the flounces of her own skirts, making herself arguably too comfortable on the courtyard ground, just out of range where it would be easy to either fall on her or throw a sword the wrong way. light glints on a sword in mid air and she says, )

You've carved your way out, take your shirts off—

( she cannot be stopped. )

[ he catches it, lets the weight and direction of the toss take the sword into an underhand sweep while he gets the sense of the blade, the weight and how it cuts the air.

he has not done this in— centuries? hasn’t needed to, has known doing so would be— not below him, but inappropriate. better left to the young. but he feels young, which is to say he wants gwenaëlle’s eyes on him, and iorveth, and he has them, so let what may, be.

behind the head, turning the wrist so as to sweep figure-eights, switching his weight from front to back foot to compensate for the blade. he tries a few passes between hands and dubs himself unlikely to kill himself or a pedestrian. it’s then that he can look at iorveth. iorveth is better at this, faster, has little tricks, but he feels he can match.

gwenaëlle calls out and he turns to smile at her. with one hand free, he minds that the air-slicing turns of the blade don’t come close to his arm, and idly begins undoing the top closures of his robe. ]

[ gwenaelle calls out her new demands as thranduil is getting used to the weight and feel of the sword, picking up speed and finesse, and he tosses his head back in a laugh. it wouldn't be the first time a simple physical activity was amended by gwenaelle baudin yelling "now strip" from somewhere on the sidelines. her forwardness is refreshing.

thranduil, after giving a look, is already reaching for buttons on his clothes, working the fixtures open between swings of the blade. with only the one now, rather than the two, iorveth can use the free hand to pull at his shirt, loosening laces and expanding the neck of it.

he gets the garment off his head and =left shoulder, before tossing the blade up, out of the way just long enough to take trapped arm out of the shirt and toss ir aside, the cloth falling into gwen's lap.

just don't ask him to put oil on. ]
]

[ well, that’s impressive, and thranduil can’t refuse a challenge.

(rip provost baudin, killed in the middle of a sick stunt.)

he brings one sleeve to his mouth to undo the buttons with his teeth, and then very elegantly and not at all clumsily rolls his shoulder to loose one shoulder off and then tosses the sword high to switch hands before doing the same with the other side. the fabric slides off his back and crumples at his feet, and he steps free, left only in linen shift, which is tucked at the waist into pants.

it’s close enough. he catches the sword as it falls, and now he’s a bit more at ease, toying and letting the sword change from hand to hand, once or twice behind his back. ]

[ iorveth's bright green eye never leaves thranduil as he's pulling free from the garment, only pausing to tilt his head towards gwenaelle with a chuckle once his chest is bare, a mischievous but satisfied smirk there. ]

A year here and I've not yet seen you in real combat, you know that?

[ thranduil's been on missions, and iorveth has, and they've sat around in his bedroom and talked war stories and strategy and battlefield tactics, but iorveth's not actually witnesses the man's skill itself. only dreamed of what he might look like, all deadly elegance and icy violence, beautiful and terrifying, in the way natural disasters are.

by the sharp grin that pulls at his lips, it's clear iorveth is requesting to see that now.

fight him. fight him fight him fight him. pretty pretty please. ]

( few things are nearly so handsome to gwenaëlle as thranduil (and iorveth) doing as she bids, so she is more than pleased with this development; catches iorveth's discarded shirt and drapes it around her shoulders. he may or may not get it back, but she suspects he wouldn't mind—partly his affection for her and partly his disinterest in fine things, both. another day, she might allow also the thought iorveth might like her in his things nearly so much as thranduil does, but

they are still learning the precise lines over which they don't dance, now. that is probably one of them. )

No blood, ( she says, swiftly, translating iorveth's request as quick as he makes it. ) And not the face. I need that. For things.

[ the rotation of the sword slows, rather than stops, and then it is laying, blade flat across his outstretched palms, bladed edge towards thranduil. the look on his face has shifted from hunger edged with lust to—solemnity. calculation. he adds on to gwenaëlle’s demands with a few of his own. ]

Practice swords, in the training yard. We fight to the yield, one round.

[ it won’t last long. iorveth might be able to drag it out, even as they’re playing and iorveth is high, and this is less courtship and more—thranduil isn’t sure what to call it. ]

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open | your baddest behavior

feral!!

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